The key to remember when disrupting an industry you’re new to.
You don’t need to know everything, you just need to know enough to be dangerous.
Smart newbies don’t know the so-called “rules”, so they’ll try anything.

I hear a lot of people whining about the iPhone 5 looking almost the same as the iPhone 4 and 4S.
So let me get this straight. You’re complaining a new, beautifully-engineered phone looks just like 2 other beautifully-engineered predecessors.
There are people that say the same thing about another company who makes beautiful, high performance automobiles that change little from year after year: Porsche.
Don’t turn consistency into a bad thing.
In the immortal words of the great philosopher Louis CK, everything is amazing and nobody is happy.

Earlier today, Kickstarter approved my project proposal for Faster Horses.
It’s a series of 14 posters illustrating innovations from various industries over the last 100 years.
There’s 7 innovations, with 2 poster designs each:

• The Model T – A Faster Horse
• The Light Bulb – A Brighter Candle
• The Phonograph – A Portable Orchestra
• The Geodesic Dome – A Stronger Brick
• The Macintosh – A Smarter Abacus
• The iPod – A Portable Record Collection
• The iPhone – A Smarter Telephone

Unlike my previous Kickstarter project, Bicycles For Our Minds, this time around I’ll be screen printing everything myself. I’m really excited and I hope it gets funded.

Fascinating story in Wired about Cosmo, a 15-year-old hacker, “who weaseled his way past security systems at Amazon, Apple, AT&T, PayPal, AOL, Netflix, Network Solutions, and Microsoft.”
Typical pranks hackers might play on each other? Oh, just getting the SWAT team at your house:

“Someone also swatted my house,” he tells me, smiling. “It happens a lot to me. Well, the SWAT team was only once at my house, but lots of time with the local police department.” Swatting is a vicious prank where a hacker uses an internet call system to report a hostage situation, which scrambles local law enforcement to the victim’s doorstep.

Every more impressive than Cosmo’s computer skills are his social engineering skills:

And that’s the secret. When Cosmo calls a company pretending to be an employee, he doesn’t wait for them to ask for details. He tells them all the person’s data he has up front. If he knows three pieces of a puzzle and just needs the fourth, he gives them those first without waiting to be asked for them. That way he demonstrates a knowledge of the system, disarming the person on the other end of the line and making them less likely to question his authenticity.

Cosmo sometimes even provides details that he knows tech support doesn’t need. For example, if a tech support requires only the zip code on file, he’ll provide the full address anyway. It makes him appear more knowledgeable and less likely to be questioned. That’s classic social engineering.

The security loopholes at large companies, combined with how easy it is to buy things like social security numbers, almost makes you not want to use the Internet anymore (sadly, this wouldn’t make much difference anyway).

When you got a career, there ain’t enough time in the day. When you got a career and you look at your watch, time just flies. Like, goddamn! Woah! It’s five thirty-five! Damn, I gotta come in early tomorrow and work on my project! Cause there ain’t enough time, when you got a career.

When you gotta job? There’s too much time.

—Chris Rock, Kill the Messenger

I’m drawn to Brett Armory’s work. They bring back memories I have from New York even though they’re based on photos he took around the Tenderloin district in San Francisco. It’s the darkness and grittiness.
When I think of San Francisco, I think of bright, colorful murals in the Mission district and the beautiful view from my mother-in-law’s house in Bernal Heights. This is not the San Francisco Armory is depicting. If you’ve ever been to the Tenderloin, Dave Chappelle is right when he said, “Ain’t nuthin’ tender ’bout that motherfucker. The opposite of tender.”
via Kronstadt

Grind is an interesting co-workspace on 29th & Park in NYC.
Looks similar to place here in LA I’ve been going to for the last few months called Coloft. Similar prices too. Both are $35/day, ~$500/month.
via PSFK

Sherlock’s little ride in Game of Shadows? An 1893 Duryea:

This four-wheeled vehicle has metal tires with a buggy body and top. The one-cylinder, four-cycle, four-horsepower, water-cooled gasoline engine, with make-and-break electric ignition, lies almost horizontally beneath the body, and its cylinder head extends backward above the rear axle.

One cylinder. Four horsepower.
via Just A Car Guy

The smallest V-12 engine in the world. Incredible.
via Technabob

via Modern Mechanix

via Wired

Someone decided to redesign the key ring we’ve been using for eternity. It’s called FreeKey:

Save your nails–the Free Key key ring makes it incredibly easy to put keys on without having to worry about prying the rings apart with your fingernails. The Free Key is designed in such a way so that you can press down on the opposite end of the ring and have the opening lift up without much effort.

via Just A Car Guy

The wait is over. Hitler can get his iPhone 5 now.

The earliest known photograph of men drinking beer. Edinburgh Ale, 1844.